National

Minnesota to ban crypto ATMs over scam concerns

By Alex Derosier, Pioneer Press The Tribune Content Agency
A CoinFlip bitcoin ATM is sandwiched between a cash ATM and a live bait kiosk at a gas station in Woodbury, Minnesota, on March 28, 2023. Several factors make crypto attractive to scammers: There's no bank or other centralized authority to flag suspicious transactions and attempt to stop fraud before it happens; crypto transfers can't be reversed, and most people are still unfamiliar with how crypto works, according to the Federal Trade Commission. (John Autey/St. Paul Pioneer Press/TNS)
A CoinFlip bitcoin ATM is sandwiched between a cash ATM and a live bait kiosk at a gas station in Woodbury, Minnesota, on March 28, 2023. Several factors make crypto attractive to scammers: There's no bank or other centralized authority to flag suspicious transactions and attempt to stop fraud before it happens; crypto transfers can't be reversed, and most people are still unfamiliar with how crypto works, according to the Federal Trade Commission. (John Autey/St. Paul Pioneer Press/TNS) John Autey TNS

Minnesota is set to ban kiosks that sell virtual currencies like Bitcoin later this year under a bipartisan bill Gov. Tim Walz signed into law on Tuesday.

Local law enforcement and state regulators urged the Legislature to ban the kiosks because of what they described as a growing problem with scams, particularly against older adults. There are around 350 kiosks in Minnesota.

The Department of Commerce estimated that state residents lost somewhere near $1 million to kiosk scams in the last three years, with around half of that in 2025. In February, they told House lawmakers that close to a quarter-billion dollars had been lost to scams nationally in the first half of 2025.

In a typical scam, fraudsters push people to deposit money into ATM-like kiosks and convert it into cryptocurrency - anonymizing the funds and making them almost impossible to recover.

In a 2022 case covered by the Pioneer Press, a 78-year-old Woodbury woman lost more than $70,000 to scammers posing as Geek Squad representatives.

On several separate occasions, the scammers had her withdraw thousands of dollars from her Wells Fargo bank account and deposit it into a CoinFlip bitcoin ATM inside a Woodbury gas station.

It's not the first ban on the machines. Indiana's governor signed a ban into law in March for similar reasons. Tennessee's governor approved a ban in April that's set to go into effect in July.

Minnesota cities also have tried to ban the kiosks, though the ordinances attracted lawsuits. St. Paul and Stillwater recently approved bans.

Bitcoin Depot, which operates around 110 ATM-style virtual currency kiosks in Minnesota, sued Stillwater in September, claiming that its ban would "cause irreparable harm to citizens who are hindered in their ability to access virtual currency kiosks," according to the complaint.

But the company dropped its lawsuits against Stillwater and St. Paul as the state ban gained momentum in the Legislature.

CoinFlip, a Chicago-based virtual currency kiosk operator with more than 5,500 locations in the U.S. and 50 in Minnesota, urged lawmakers to pursue more regulation rather than an outright ban.

But House bill sponsor Rep. Erin Koegel, DFL-Spring Lake Park, said fraud is far too rampant to allow kiosks to continue operating.

She pointed to an Iowa Attorney General investigation finding that 98% of transactions through one kiosk operator in the state were fraudulent.

Minnesota's ban on kiosk operation goes into effect on Aug. 1. Operators must remove kiosks from public access on or before Dec. 31 this year.

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Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 8:18 PM.

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